Craig Hampton was near the top of the food chain in Senator John Ensign's personal office, and his wife Cynthia served as Treasurer for Ensign's PAC and re-election campaigns. Then Cynthia slept with the couple's boss. Now what?

"It appears there may be nothing the law can do to correct and bring justice and restitution to this terrible wrong that has been done us," he wrote. "I have sought a number of lawyers who are having difficulty finding charges that may hold up in court."

Instead, Hampton was willing to expose his wife's extramarital activities to broad public scrutiny in an effort to ruin his former boss.

More than two decades ago, model Donna Rice Hughes was thrust into the spotlight when a photo of her sitting on the lap of married Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart caused him to drop out of the race. She also lost her job with a pharmaceutical company and all but disappeared for nearly seven years.

She is now an internationally known Internet safety expert and president of Enough Is Enough, an organization that fights child pornography. She has testified before Congress several times, co-authored a book on child Internet safety and served as an expert on the "Dateline NBC" series "To Catch a Predator."

Rice decided to channel her infamy and embarrassment into hard work in an effort to make her life about more than her affair (and about doing well for others).

Eliot Spitzer's infamous call-girl is cashing in, but not as much as she could be.

The former $4,000 call girl caused an upset when she appeared at New York Fashion Week this year, and she is reportedly working on an album and film opportunities. She's also blogging and has turned down offers to appear in Playboy and Penthouse.

She's not willing to be famously naked (other than her reported appearance on Girls Gone Wild), but she's trying to nonetheless be famous in the entertainment industry.

Many of the political mistresses whose affairs resulted in children have, more or less, eschewed the spotlight, including the mother of Jesse Jackson's child, Karin Stanford and Rielle Hunter, the mother of John Edwards' alleged love child. Other women, like Judith Nathan and Calista Bisek went on to marry their lovers (Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, respectively). And some, like Monica Lewinsky, flirted with celebrity and then got out of the spotlight.

But how about Ruby Rippey-Tourk, whose affair with the separated Gavin Newsom prompted her husband's angry resignation and months of stories in the local (and national) papers? Despite reports that she was working on a book, she's stayed out of the spotlight as well. Which, frankly, might have been what Craig Hampton should have allowed his wife to do. But apparently, his ego was more important.